TELESFORO, POPE, saint, martyr. - S. Ireneo places him seventh after the Apostles and says that he ended his days with a “glorious martyrdom” (Ad. Haer., III, 3, 3; Eusebio, Hist. eccl., IV, 10; V, 6, 4).
His pontificate lasted 11 years (Lib. Pont., p. LXXX) and is placed approximately between 125 and 136. Eusebio (Hist. eccl., IV, 5, 5 and loc. cit.) and the Liberian Catalogue (ed. Duchesne, in Lib. Pont., I, pp. 2-3) assign him, with some uncertainty, the years 127-38. The Liber Pont. says that he was of Greek origin and attributes to him, without any foundation, the institution of the seven-week Lenten fast and the nocturnal Christmas Masses with the singing of the Gloria (the 2nd ed. instead speaks of the Gloria in the daily Mass to be celebrated after terce). The same source says that he was buried in the Vatican on 2 January. The Hieronymian Martyrology does not mention him; however, Floro in his Martyrology (9th cent.) transformed an African martyr named T., listed in the Hieronymianum on 5 January, into S. T. pope, and this identification is still retained in the Roman Martyrology. In the Missal the commemoration of S. T. (5 January) appears for the first time in the typical ed. of 1604.